IllegalArgumentException when 'from' or 'size' is too large

[thihy]

For request:

 {"sort":{"_uid":"asc"},"from":2147483647,"size":10, "query":{"query_string":{"query":"*:*"}}}

Failed with a IllegalArgumentException:

IllegalArgumentException[numHits must be > 0; please use TotalHitCountCollector if you just need the total hit count]; }]

[martijnvg]

@thihy This is very large from value and usage like this can lead to heap memory performance issues. ES would need to create a priority queue of size from + size of each shard for sorting purposes. Actually in this case we can't event create a priority queue, because from + size is larger then Integer.MAX_VALUE.

What is the reason for the high from usage? If you want to retrieve all the documents from ES in a particular order then I suggest you use the scroll api. This doesn't create a priority query of size from + size, but just a size equal to size. See for more information: http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/search-request-scroll.html#search-request-scroll

The error message is cryptic and we should fail requests like this in a better and more descriptive way.

[clintongormley]

Closed by #7778